I don't have an RV yet, but want to start preparing in any way I can.  I hear a lot of talk about CCC, and weighing what you take on board.  Do you just load the RV up with the things you need and want and then go weigh the entire lot, or do you have a general idea of the weight of items in the kitchen, bedroom, bath, etc.  It seems to me you need to know roughly how much everything weighs so you can decide what you can do without if necessary.

This is just like backpacking, only heavier.  I've been listing things in my kitchen and am up to 85# with no food items whatsoever, and still a few things to go.  Am I on the right track or am I just nit-picking and should wait.  Thanks
gypsy

I may be the exception due to the magnitude of my carry on stuff, but what I did was to take everything I expected to carry on board and piled it all in my bricks and sticks living room. The stuff destined for the RV basement I even went so far as to find containers that I could stack in the RV basement and packed all the potential RV basement stuff accordingly. Then I could do two things. One was to weigh everything and two I could measure the physical dimensions and ensure that I had sufficient RV basement volume as I shopped for a rig.

I actually had it in my living room for several months. In this manner I was able to get a really solid feel for what I was going to carry on board, it gave me time to ponder and pare down the load, it gave me time to figure out better packing strategies/container, it easily allowed sorting out important and not important clothes and the like, and it ensured I would be within CCC. I was able to take my time doing all this while getting other things in order too.

Then, after loading it all up I had it weighed once by axle (local truck stop) and again at each wheel (for balance). The weighing confirmed I was well within safe loading.

Sounds like you really figured it out well, Dude.  I have my house up for sale now and hopefully will soon get some folks coming to look at it, so I'm stuffing things away in closets & under beds just so the place doesn't look cluttered.  The kitchen was the easy part, and I shouldn't have too much trouble with clothes.  I got most of my stuff only 5 yrs ago when I came back from Ireland and bought this place, and I'm not one to like shopping, so mainly it's things I needed.   The most difficult task is going to be to let go of the sentimental items - the things my kids have given me, the photo albums & framed pictures of children & grandchildren, etc.  I may just rent a small storage space for a while until I decide what to do with those things.
gypsy

We just took what we wanted, including a number of things we haven't looked at once in the 2 1/2 years we've been full timing, and then weighed it all when we were on the road. We've since added over 1000 pounds, and are just about at the GVWR limit. If you buy a rig with sufficient CCC, you shouldn't have a problem. That's the key, don't be swayed by the glitter, look at the numbers. Good luck, Fred

We are in the process of getting ready too. As for photos and memorabilia we are trying to digitize everything. There are scanning services, we used scanmyphotos.com which can do photos, vcr & 8mm tapes. The kids school work - pictures projects etc. I photographed and now have on dvd's - I know some people take the best of these and make photobooks online. We have run into some things that we just have to scan ourselves - to do it all ourselves would be overwhelming. I had over 6000 photos scanned and have more to send. This has been one of our greatest challanges. Good luck.

-- Edited by janieD on Friday 4th of September 2009 01:57:38 PM